V

Y

From LoveToKnow 1911

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HINDUISM, a term generally employed to
comprehend the social institutions, past and present, of the Hindus
who form the great majority of the people of India; as well as the multitudinous crop of their religious beliefs which
has grown up, in the course of many centuries, on the foundation of
the Brahmanical scriptures. The actual proportion of the total
population of India (294 millions) included under the name of
"Hindus" has been computed in the census report for 1901 at something like 70%
(206 millions); the remaining 30% being made up partly of the
followers of foreign creeds,
such as Mahommedans, Parsees, Christians and Jews, partly of the votaries of indigenous forms
of belief which have at various times separated from the main
stock, and developed into independent systems, such as Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism; and partly of isolated
hill and jungle tribes, such
as the Santals, Bhils (Bhilla) and Kols, whose crude animistic tendencies have
hitherto kept them, either wholly or for the most part, outside the
pale of the Brahmanical community. The name "Hindu" itself is of
foreign origin, being derived from the Persians, by whom the river
Sindhu was called Hindhu, a name subsequently applied to the
inhabitants of that frontier district, and gradually extended over
the upper and middle reaches of the Gangetic valley, whence this
whole tract of country between the Himalaya and the Vindhya mountains, west of Bengal, came to be called by the foreign
conquerors "Hindustan," or the abode of the Hindus; whilst the native writers
called it "Aryavarta," or the abode of the Aryas.

But whilst, in its more comprehensive acceptation, the term
Hinduism would thus range over the entire historical development of
Brahmanical India, it is also not infrequently used in a narrower
sense, as denoting more especially the modern phase of Indian
social and religious institutions - from the earlier centuries of
the Christian era down to our own days - as distinguished from the
period dominated by the authoritative doctrine of pantheistic
belief, formulated by the speculative theologians during the
centuries immediately succeeding the Vedic period (see Brahmanism). In this its
more restricted sense the term may thus practically be taken to
apply to the later bewildering variety of popular sectarian forms
of belief, with its social concomitant, the fully developed caste-system. But, though one may
at times find it convenient to speak of "Brahmanism and Hinduism," it must be clearly
understood that the distinction implied in the combination of these
terms is an extremely vague one, especially from the chronological
point of view. The following considerations will probably make this
clear.

The characteristic tenet of orthodox Brahmanism consists in the
conception of an absolute, all-embracing spirit, the Brahma
(neutr.), being the one and only reality, itself un-
Connexion conditioned, and the original cause and ultimate
withgoal of all
individual souls (jiva, i.e. living things).
Brah- Coupled with this abstract conception are two other
manism* doctrines, viz. first, the transmigration of souls
(sainsara), regarded by Indian thinkers as the necessary
complement of a belief
in the essential sameness of all the various spiritual units,
however contaminated, to a greater or less degree, they may be by
their material embodiment; and in their ultimate re-union with the
Paramatman, or Supreme Self; and second, the assumption of
a triple manifestation of the ceaseless working of that Absolute
Spirit as a creative, conservative and destructive principle,
represented respectively by the divine personalities of Brahma
(masc.), Vishnu and Siva, forming the Trimurti
or Triad. As regards this latter, purely exoteric, doctrine, there
can be little doubt of its owing its origin to considerations of
theological expediency, as being calculated to supply a
sufficiently wide formula of belief for general acceptance; and the
very fact of this divine triad including the two principal deities
of the later sectarian worship, Vishnu and Siva, goes far to show
that these two gods at all events must have been already in those
early days favourite objects of popular adoration to an extent sufficient to preclude
their being ignored by a diplomatic priesthood bent upon the
formulation of a common creed. Thus, so far from sectarianism being
a mere modern development of Brahmanism, it actually goes back to
beyond the formulation of the Brahmanical creed. Nay, when, on analysing the functions and
attributes of those two divine figures, each of them is found to be
but a compound of several previously recognized deities, sectarian
worship may well be traced right up to the Vedic age. That the
theory of the triple manifestation of the deity was indeed only a
compromise between
Brahmanical aspirations and popular worship, probably largely
influenced by the traditional sanctity of the number three, is
sufficiently clear from the fact that, whilst Brahma, the creator,
and at the same time the very embodiment of Brahmanical class
pride, has practically remained a mere figurehead in the actual
worship of the people, Siva, on the other hand, so far from being
merely the destroyer, is also the unmistakable representative of
generative and reproductive power in nature. In fact, Brahma,
having performed his legitimate part in the mundane evolution by his original
creation of the universe, has retired into the background, being,
as it were, looked upon as functus officio, like a venerable figure of a
former generation, whence in epic poetry he is commonly styled
pitamaha, " the grandsire." But despite the artificial
character of the Trimurti, it has retained to this day at
least its theoretical validity in orthodox Hinduism, whilst it has
also undoubtedly exercised considerable influence in shaping
sectarian belief, in promoting feelings of toleration towards the claims of rival
deities; and in a tendency towards identifying divine figures newly
sprung into popular favour with one or other of the principal
deities, and thus helping to bring into vogue that notion of
avatars, or periodical descents or incarnations of the deity, which
has become so prominent a feature of the later sectarian
belief.

Under more favourable political conditions, the sacerdotal class
might perhaps, in course of time, have succeeded in imposing
something like an effective common creed on the heterogeneous
medley of races and tribes scattered over the peninsula, just as
they certainly did succeed in establishing the social prerogative of their
own order over the length and breadth of India. They were, however,
fated to fall far short of such a consummation; and at all times
orthodox Brahmanism has had to wink at, or ignore, all manner of gross superstitions and repulsive
practices, along with the popular worship of countless hosts of
godlings, demons, spirits
and ghosts, and mystic objects and symbols of every description.
Indeed, according to a recent account by a close observer of the
religious practices prevalent in southern India, fully four-fifths
of the people of the Dravidian race, whilst nominally
acknowledging the spiritual guidance of the Brahmans, are to this
day practically given over to the worship of their nondescript
local village deities (grama-devata), usually attended by
animal sacrifices frequently involving the slaughter, under
revolting circumstances, of thousands of victims. Curiously enough
these local deities are nearly all of the female, not the male sex. In the estimation of these people
"Siva and Vishnu may be more dignified beings, but the village
deity is regarded as a more present help in trouble, and more
intimately concerned with the happiness and prosperity of the
villagers. The origin of this form of Hinduism is lost in
antiquity, but it is probable that it represents a pre-Aryan religion, more or less
modified in various parts of south India by Brahmanical influence.
At the same time, many of the deities themselves are of quite
recent origin, and it is easy to observe a deity in making even at
the present day." 2 It is a significant fact that, whilst in the
worship of Siva and Vishnu, at which no animal sacrifices are
offered, the officiating priests are almost invariably Brahmans,
this is practically never the case at the popular performance of
those "gloomy and weird rites for the propitiation of angry
deities, or the driving away
of evil spirits, when the pujaris (or ministrants) are drawn from
all other castes, even from the Pariahs, the out-caste section of
Indian society." As from the point of view of religious belief, so
also from that of social organization no clear line of demarcation
can be. drawn between Brahmanism and Hinduism. Though it was not
till later times that the network of class divisions and
subdivisions attained anything like the degree of intricacy which
it shows in these latter days, still in its origin the caste-system
is undoubtedly coincident with the rise of Brahmanism, and may even
be said to be of the very essence of it.3 The cardinal principle which underlies the system
of caste is the preservation of purity of descent, and purity of
religious belief and ceremonial usage. Now, that same principle had
been operative from the very dawn
of the history of Aryanized India. The social organism of the Aryan
tribe did not probably differ essentially from that of most
communities at that primitive stage of civilization; whilst the
body of the people - the Vis (or aggregate of Vaisyas)
- would be mainly occupied with agricultural and pastoral pursuits, two
professional classes - those of the warrior and the priest - had already made good
their claim to social distinction. As yet, however, the tribal
community would still feel one in race and traditional usage. But 1
"It is, perhaps, by surveying India that we at this day can best
represent to ourselves and appreciate the vast external reform
worked upon the heathen
world by Christianity, as it was organized and
executed throughout Europe by
the combined authority of the Holy Roman Empire and the Church
Apostolic." Sir Alfred C. Lyall, Asiatic
Studies, i. 2.

The effect of caste is to give all Hindu society a religious
basis."Sir A. C. Lyall, Brahmanism. when the fair-coloured
Aryan immigrants first came in contact with, and drove back or
subdued the dark-skinned race that occupied the northern plains -
doubtless the ancestors of the modern Dravidian people - the
preservation of their racial type and traditionary order of things
would naturally become to them a matter of serious concern. In the
extreme northwestern districts - the Punjab and Rajputana, judging from the fairly uniform
physical features of the present population of these parts - they
seem to have been signally successful in their endeavour to
preserve their racial purity, probably by being able to clear a
sufficiently extensive area of the original occupants for
themselves with their wives and children to settle upon. The case was, however, very
different in the adjoining valley of the Jumna and Ganges, the sacred Madhyadesa or
Middle-land of classical India. Here the Aryan immigrants were not
allowed to establish themselves without undergoing a considerable
admixture of foreign blood. It must remain uncertain whether it was
that the thickly-populated character of the land scarcely admitted
of complete occupation, but only of a conquest by an army of
fighting men, starting from the Aryanized region - who might,
however, subsequently draw women of their own kin after them - or whether, as has been suggested,
a second Aryan invasion of India took place at that time through
the mountainous tracts of the upper Indus and northern Kashmir, where the nature of the road would
render it impracticable for the invading bands to be accompanied by
women and children. Be this as it may, the physical appearance of
the population of this central region of northern India - Hindustan
and Behar - clearly points to an
intermixture of the tall, fair-coloured, fine-nosed Aryan with the
short-sized, dark-skinned, broad-nosed Dravidian; the latter type
becoming more pronounced towards the lower strata of the social
order.' Now, it was precisely in this part of India that mainly
arose the body of literature which records the gradual rise of the
Brahmanical hierarchy
and the early development of the castesystem.

The problem that now lay before the successful invaders was how
to deal with the indigenous people, probably vastly outnumbering
them, without losing their own racial identity. They dealt with
them in the way the white race usually deals with the coloured race
- they kept them socially apart. The land being appropriated by the
conquerors, husbandry, as the most respectable industrial
occupation, became the legitimate calling of the Aryan settler, the
Vaisya; whilst handicrafts, gradually multiplying with
advancing civilization and menial service, were assigned to the subject
race. The generic name applied to the latter was Sudra,
originally probably the name of one of the subjected tribes. So far
the social development proceeded on lines hardly differing from
those with which one is familiar in the history of other nations.
The Indo-Aryans, however, went a step farther. What they did was
not only to keep the native race apart from social intercourse with
themselves, but to shut them out from all participation in their
own higher aims, and especially in their own religious convictions
and ceremonial practices. So far from attempting to raise their
standard of spiritual life, or even leaving it to ordinary
intercourse to gradually bring about a certain community of
intellectual culture and religious sentiment, they deliberately set
up artificial barriers in order to prevent their own traditional
modes of worship from being contaminated with the obnoxious practices of the
servile race. The serf, the Sudra, was not to worship the
gods of the Aryan freemen. The result was the system of four castes
(varna, i.e." colour ";
or jati," gens "). Though the Brahman, who by this time had firmly secured
his supremacy over the kshatriya, or noble, in matters
spiritual as well as in legislative and administrative functions,
would naturally be the prime mover in this regulation of the social
4 Thus, in Berar," there is a
strong non-Aryan leaven in the
dregs of the agricultural class, derived from the primitive races
which have gradually melted down into settled life, and thus become
fused with the general community, while these same races are still
distinct tribes in the wild tracts of hill and jungle."Sir Alfred
C. Lyall, As. St., i. 6.

order, there seems no reason to believe that the other two upper
classes were not equally interested in seeing their hereditary
privileges thus perpetuated by divine sanction. Nothing, indeed, is
more remarkable in the whole development of the caste-system than
the jealous pride which every caste, from the highest to the
lowest, takes in its own peculiar occupation and sphere of life.
The distinctive badge of a member of the three upper castes was the
sacred triple cord or thread (sutra) - made of
cotton, hemp or wool, according
to the respective caste - with which he was invested at the
upanayana ceremony, or initiation into the use of the sacred
savitri, or prayer to
the sun (also called gayatri), constituting his second
birth. Whilst the Arya was thus a dvi-ja, or twice-born,
the Sudra remained unregenerate during his lifetime, his consolation being the
hope that, on the faithful performance of his duties in this life,
he might hereafter be born again into a higher grade of life. In
later times, the strict adherence to caste duties would naturally
receive considerable support from the belief in the transmigration
of souls, already prevalent before Buddha's time, and from the very
general acceptance of the doctrine of karma ("deed "), or retribution, according to which a
man's present station and manner of life are the result of the
sum-total of his actions and thoughts in his former existence; as
his actions here will again, by the same automatic process of
retribution, determine his status and condition in his next
existence. Though this doctrine is especially insisted upon in
Buddhism, and its designation as a specific term (Pali,
Kamma) may be due to that creed, the notion itself was
doubtless already prevalent in pre-Buddhist times. It would even
seem to be necessarily and naturally implied in Brahmanical belief
in metempsychosis; whilst in the doctrine
of Buddha, who admits no soul,
the theory of the net result or fruit of a man's actions serving
hereafter to form or condition the existence of some new individual
who will have no conscious identity with himself, seems of a
peculiarly artificial and mystic character. But, be this as it
may," the doctrine of karma is certainly one of the
firmest beliefs of all classes of Hindus, and the fear that a man
shall reap as he has sown is an appreciable element in the average
morality. .. the idea of forgiveness is absolutely wanting; evil
done may indeed be outweighed by meritorious deeds so far as to
ensure a better existence in the future, but it is not effaced, and
must be atoned for "(Census Report, i. 364).

In spite, however, of the artificial restrictions placed on the
intermarrying of the castes, the mingling of the two races seems to
have proceeded at a tolerably rapid rate. Indeed, the paucity of
women of the Aryan stock would probably render these mixed unions
almost a necessity from the very outset; and the vaunted purity of
blood which the caste rules were calculated to perpetuate can
scarcely have remained of more than a relative degree even in the
case of the Brahman caste. Certain it is that mixed castes are
found referred to at a comparatively early
period; and at the time of Buddha - some five or six centuries
before the Christian era - the social organization would seem to
have presented an appearance not so very unlike that of modern
times. It must be confessed, however, that our information
regarding the development of the caste-system is far from complete,
especially in its earlier stages. Thus, we are almost entirely left
to conjecture on the important point as to the original social
organization of the subject race. Though doubtless divided into
different tribes scattered over an extensive tract of land, the
subjected aborigines
were slumped together under the designation of Sudras, whose duty
it was to serve the upper classes in all the various departments of
manual labour, save those of a downright sordid and degrading
character which it was left to vratyas or outcasts to
perform. How, then, was the distribution of crafts and habitual
occupations of all kinds brought about? Was the process one of
spontaneous growth adapting an already existing social organization
to a new order of things; or was it originated and perpetuated by
regulation from above? Or was it rather that the status and duties
of existing offices and trades came to be determined and made
hereditary by some such artificial system as that by which the
Theodosian Code succeeded for a time in organizing the Roman
society in the 5th century of our era ?" It is well known
"(says Professor Dill)" that the tendency of the later
Empire was to stereotype society, by compelling men to follow
the occupation of their fathers, and preventing a free circulation
among different callings and grades of life. The man who brought
the grain from Africa to the public stores at Ostia, the baker who made it into loaves for
distribution, the butchers who brought pigs from Samnium, Lucania or Bruttium, the
purveyors of wine and oil, the men
who fed the furnaces of the public baths, were bound to their callings from one
generation to another. It was the principle of rural serfdom applied to social
functions. Every avenue of
escape was closed. A man was bound to his calling not only by his
father's but also by his mother's condition. Men were not permitted
to marry out of their gild. If the daughter of one of the baker
caste married a man not belonging to it, her husband was bound to
her father's calling. Not even a dispensation obtained by some means from
the imperial chancery, not
even the power of the Church could avail to break the chain of servitude."It can hardly be
gainsaid that these artificial arrangements bear a very striking analogy to those of the Indian caste-system;
and if these class restrictions were comparatively short-lived on
Italian ground, it was not
perhaps so much that so strange a plant found there an ethnic soil
less congenial to its permanent growth, but because it was not
allowed sufficient time to become firmly rooted; for already great
political events were impending which within a few decades were to
lay the mighty empire in ruins. In° India, on the other hand, the
institution of caste - even if artificially contrived and imposed
by the Indo-Aryan priest and ruler - had
at least ample time allowed it to become firmly established in the
social habits, and even in the affections, of the people. At the
same time, one could more easily understand how such a system could
have found general acceptance all over the Dravidian region of
southern India, with its merest sprinkling of Aryan blood, if it
were possible to assume that class arrangements of a similar kind
must have already been prevalent amongst the aboriginal tribes
prior to the advent of the
Aryan. Whether a more intimate acquaintance with the manners and
customs of those rude tribes that have hitherto kept themselves
comparatively free from Hindu influences may yet throw some light
on this question, remains to be seen. But, by this as it may, the
institution of caste, when once established, certainly appears to
have gone on steadily developing; and not even the long period of
Buddhist ascendancy, with its uncompromising resistance to the
Brahman's claim to being the sole arbiter in matters of faith,
seems to have had any very appreciable retardant effect upon the
progress of the movement. It was not only by the formation of ever
new endogamous castes and sub-castes that the system gained in
extent and intricacy, but even more so by the constant subdivision
of the castes into numerous exogamous groups or septs, themselves
often involving gradations of social status important enough to
seriously affect the possibility of intermarriage, already hampered
by various other restrictions. Thus a man wishing to marry his son
or daughter had to look for a suitable match outside his sept, but within his caste. But whilst for his son
he might choose a wife from a lower sept than his own, for his
daughter, on the other hand, the law of hypergamy compelled him, if
at all possible, to find a husband in a higher sept. This would
naturally lead to an excess of
women over men in the higher septs, and would render it difficult
for a man to get his daughter respectably married without paying a
high price for a suitable bridegroom and incurring other heavy
marriage expenses. It can hardly be doubted that this custom has
been largely responsible for the crime of female infanticide, formerly so prevalent in
India; as it also probably is to some extent for infant marriages, still too common in some parts
of India, especially Bengal; and even for the all but universal
repugnance to the re-marriage of widows, even when these had been
married in early childhood and had never joined their husbands. Yet
violations of these rules are jealously watched by the other
members of the sept, and are liable - in accordance with the
general custom in which communal matters are regulated in India -
to be brought before a special council (panchayat),
originally consisting of five (pancha), but now no longer
limited to that number, since it is chiefly the greater or less
strictness in the observance of caste rules and the orthodox
ceremonial generally that determine the status of the sept in the
social scale of the caste. Whilst community of occupation was an
important factor in the original formation of non-tribal castes,
the practical exigencies of life have led to considerable laxity in
this respect - not least so in the case of Brahmans who have often
had to take to callings which would seem altogether incompatible
with the proper spiritual functions of their caste. Thus," the prejudice against eating
cooked food that has been touched by a man of an inferior caste is
so strong that, although the Shastras do not prohibit the eating of
food cooked by a Kshatriya or Vaisya, yet the Brahmans, in most
parts of the country, would not eat such food. For these reasons,
every Hindu household - whether Brahman, Kshatriya or Sudra - that
can afford to keep a paid cook
generally entertains the services of a Brahman for the performance
of its cuisine - the result being that in the larger towns
the very name of Brahman has suffered a strange degradation of
late, so as to mean only a cook "(Jogendra Nath Bhattacharya,
Hindu Castes and Sects). In this caste, however, as in all
others, there are certain kinds of occupation to which a member
could not turn for a livelihood without incurring serious
defilement. In fact, adherence to the traditional ceremonial and
respectability of occupation go very much hand-in-hand. Thus,
amongst agricultural castes, those engaged in vegetable-growing or market-gardening are
inferior to the genuine peasant or yeoman, such as the Jat and Rajput; whilst of these the Jat who practises
widow-marriage ranks below the Rajput who prides himself on his
tradition of ceremonial orthodoxy - though racially there seems
little, if any, difference between the two; and the Rajput, again,
is looked down upon by the Babhan of Behar because he does not,
like himself, scruple to
handle the plough, instead of invariably
employing low-caste men for this manual labour. So also when
members of the Baidya, or physician, caste of Bengal, ranging next
to that of the Brahman, farm land
on tenure," they will on no
account hold the plough, or engage in any form of manual labour,
and thus necessarily carry on their cultivation by means of hired
servants "(H. H. Risley, Census Report). The
scale of social precedence as recognized by native public
opinion is concisely reviewed (ib.) as revealing itself" in the
facts that particular castes are supposed to be modern
representatives of one or other of the original castes of the
theoretical Hindu system; that Brahmans will take water from
certain castes; that Brahmans of high standing will serve
particular castes; that certain castes, though not served by the
best Brahmans, have nevertheless got Brahmans of their own whose
rank varies according to circumstances; that certain castes are not
served by Brahmans at all but have priests of their own; that the
status of certain castes has been raised by their taking to
infant-marriage or abandoning the remarriage of widows; that the
status of others has been modified by their pursuing some
occupations in a special or peculiar way; that some can claim the
services of the village barber, the village palanquin-bearer, the village midwife, &c., while others cannot; that
some castes may not enter the courtyards of certain temples; that
some castes are subject to special taboos, such as that they must
not use the village well, or may draw water only with their own
vessels, that they must live outside the village or in a separate
quarter, that they must leave the road on the approach of a
highcaste man and must call out to give warning of their approach."
The first point to observe is the predominance throughout India of
the influence of the traditional system of four original castes. In
every scheme of grouping the Brahman heads the list. Then come the
castes whom popular opinion accepts as the modern representatives
of the Kshatriyas; and these are followed by the mercantile groups
supposed to be akin to the Vaisyas. When we leave the higher
circles of the twice-born, the difficulty of finding a uniform
basis of classification becomes apparent. The ancient designation
Sudra finds no great favour in modern times, and we can point to no
group that is generally recognized as representing it. The term is
used in Bombay, Madras and
Bengal to denote a considerable number of castes of moderate
respectability, the higher of whom are considered ` clean ' Sudras,
while the precise status of the lower is a question which lends
itself to endless controversy."In northern and north-western India,
on the other hand," the grade next below the twice-born rank is
occupied by a number of castes from whose hands Brahmans and
members of the higher castes will take water and certain kinds of
sweetmeats. Below these again is rather an indeterminate group from
whom water is taken by some of the higher castes, not by others.
Further down, where the test of water no longer applies, the status
of the caste depends on the nature of its occupation and its habits
in respect of diet. There are castes whose touch defiles the
twice-born, but who do not commit the crowning enormity of eating
beef. ... In western and southern
India the idea that the social state of a caste depends on whether
Brahmans will take water and sweetmeats from its members is
unknown, for the higher castes will as a rule take water only from
persons of their own caste and sub-caste. In Madras especially the
idea of ceremonial pollution by the proximity of an unclean caste
has been developed with much elaboration. Thus the table of social
precedence attached to the Cochin report shows that while a Nayar can pollute a man of a higher
caste only by touching him, people of the Kammalan group, including
masons, blacksmiths, carpenters and workers in leather, pollute at a distance of 24 ft.,
toddy-drawers at 36 ft., Pulayan or Cheruman cultivators at 48 ft.,
while in the case of the Paraiyan (Pariahs) who eat beef the range
of pollution is no less than 64 ft."In this bewildering maze of social grades and class
distinctions, the Brahman, as will have been seen, continues to
hold the dominant position, being respected and even worshipped by
all the others." The more orthodox Sudras carry their veneration
for the priestly class to such a degree that they will not cross
the shadow of a Brahman, and
it is not unusual for them to be under a vow not to eat any food in the morning, before
drinking Bipracharanamrita, i.e. water in which the toe of
a Brahman has been dipped. On the other hand, the pride of the
Brahmans is such that they do not bow to even the images of the gods worshipped in a
Sudra's house by Brahman priests "(Jog. Nath Bh.). There are,
however, not a few classes of Brahmans who, for various reasons,
have become degraded from their high station, and formed separate
castes with whom respectable Brahmans refuse to intermarry and consort. Chief amongst these
are the Brahmans who minister for" unclean "Sudras and lower
castes, including the makers and dealers in spirituous liquors; as
well as those who officiate at the great public shrines or places
of pilgrimage where
they might be liable to accept forbidden gifts, and, as a matter of
fact, often amass considerable wealth; and those who officiate as
paid priests at cremations and funeral rites, when the wearing apparel and bedding of the
deceased are not unfrequently claimed by them as their perquisites.
As regards the other two" twice-born "castes, several modern groups
do indeed claim to be their direct descendants, and in vindication
of their title make it a point to perform the upanayana
ceremony and to wear the sacred thread. But though the Brahmans,
too, will often acquiesce in the reasonableness of such claims, it
is probably only as a matter of policy that they do so, whilst in
reality they regard the other two higher castes as having long
since disappeared and been merged by miscegenation in the Sudra mass. Hence,
in the later classical Sanskrit literature, the term dvija,
or twice-born, is used simply as a synonym for a Brahman. As
regards the numerous groups included under the term of Sudras, the
distinction between" clean "and" unclean "Sudras is of especial
importance for the upper classes, inasmuch as only the former - of
whom nine distinct castes are usually recognized - are as a rule
considered fit for employment in household service.

The picture thus presented by Hindu society - as made up of a
confused congeries of social groups of the most varied standing,
each held together and kept separate from others by a traditional
body of ceremonial rules and by the notion of social gradations
being due to a divinely instituted order of things - finds
something like a counterpart in the religious life of the people.
As in the social sphere, so also in the sphere of religious belief,
we find the whole scale of types represented from the lowest to the
highest; and here as there, we meet with the same failure of welding the confused mass into
a well-ordered whole. In their theory of a triple manifestation of
an impersonal deity, the Brahmanical theologians, as we have seen,
had indeed elaborated a doctrine which might have seemed to form a
reasonable, authoritative creed for logy. a community
already strongly imbued with pantheistic notions; yet, at best,
that creed could only appeal to the sympathies of a comparatively
limited portion of the people. Indeed, the sacerdotal class
themselves had made its universal acceptance an impossibility,
seeing that their laws, by which the relations of the classes were
to be regulated, aimed at permanently excluding the entire body of
aboriginal tribes from the religious life of their Aryan masters.
They were to be left for all time coming to their own traditional
idolatrous notions and practices. However, the two races could not,
in the nature of things, be permanently kept separate from each
other. Indeed, even prior to the definite establishment of the
caste-system, the mingling of the lower race with the upper
classes, especially with the aristocratic landowners and still more
so with the yeomanry, had
probably been going on to such an extent as to have resulted in two
fairly well-defined intermediate types of colour between the
priestly order and the servile race and to have facilitated the
ultimate division into four" colours "(varna). In course
of time the process of intermingling, as we have seen, assumed such
proportions that the priestly class, in their pride of blood, felt
naturally tempted to recognize, as of old, only two" colours,"the
Aryan Brahman and the non-Aryan Sudra. Under these conditions the
religious practices of the lower race could hardly have failed in
the long run to tell seriously upon the spiritual life of the lay
body of the Brahmanical community. To what extent this may have
been the case, our limited knowledge of the early phases of the
sectarian worship of the people does not enable us to determine.
But, on the other hand, the same process of racial intermixture
also tended to gradually draw the lower race more or less under the
influence of the Brahmanical forms of worship, and thus contributed
towards the shaping of the religious system of modern Hinduism. The
grossly idolatrous practices, however, still so largely prevalent
in the Dravidian South, show how superficial, after all, that
influence has been in those parts of India where the admixture of
Aryan blood has been so slight as to have practically had no effect
on the racial characteristics of the people. These presentday
practices, and the attitude of the Brahman towards them, help at
all events to explain the aversion with which the strange rites of
the subjected tribes were looked upon by the worshippers of the
Vedic pantheon. At the
same time, in judging the apparently inhuman way in which the
Sudras were treated in the caste rules, one has always to bear in
mind the fact that the belief in metempsychosis was already
universal at the time, and seemed to afford the only rational
explanation of the apparent injustice involved in the unequal
distribution of the good things in this world; and that, if the
Sudra was strictly excluded from the religious rites and beliefs of
the superior classes, this exclusion in no way involved the
question of his ultimate emancipation and his union with the Infinite Spirit, which were
as certain in his case as in that of any other sentient being. What
it did make impossible for him was to attain that union immediately
on the cessation of his present life, as he would first have to
pass through higher and purer stages of mundane existence before
reaching that goal; but in this respect he only shared the lot of
all but a very few of the saintliest in the higher spheres of life,
since the ordinary twice-born would be liable to sink, after his
present life, to grades yet lower than that of the Sudra.

To what extent the changes, which the religious belief of the
Aryan classes underwent in post-Vedic times, may have been due to
aboriginal influences is a question not easily answered, though the
later creeds offer only too many features in which one might feel
inclined to suspect influences of that kind. The literary
documents, both in Sanskrit and Pali, dating from about the time of Buddha onwards
- particularly the two epic poems, the Mahabharata and
Ramayana - still show us in the main the
personnel of the old pantheon; but the character of the
gods has changed; they have become anthropomorphized and almost
purely mythological figures. A number of the chief gods, sometimes
four, but generally eight of them, now appear as lokapalas
or world-guardians, having definite quarters or intermediate
quarters of the compass
assigned to them as their special domains. One of them, Kubera, the god of wealth, is a
new figure; whilst another, Varuna, the most spiritual and ethical of Vedic
deities - the king of the gods and the universe; the nightly, star-spangled firmament - has become the Indian Neptune, the god of waters. Indra, their chief, is virtually a
kind of superior raja, residing in
svarga, and as such is on visiting terms with earthly
kings, driving about in mid-air with
his charioteer Matali. As might happen to any earth-lord, Indra is
actually defeated in battle by the son of the demon-king of Lanka
(Ceylon), and kept there a prisoner till ransomed by Brahma and the
gods conferring immortality on his conqueror. A quaint figure in the pantheon of
the heroic age is Hanuman,
the deified chief of monkeys - probably meant to represent the
aboriginal tribes of southern India - whose wonderful exploits as
Rama's ally on the expedition to Lanka Indian audiences will never
weary of hearing recounted.
The Gandharvas figure already in the Veda, either as a single
divinity, or as a class of genii, conceived of as the body-guard of
Soma and as connected with the moon. In the later Vedic times they
are represented as being fond of and dangerous to, women; the Apsaras, apparently originally
water-nymphs, being closely
associated with them. In the heroic age the Gandharvas have become
the heavenly minstrels plying their art at Indra's court, with the
Apsaras as their wives or mistresses. These fair damsels play,
however, yet another part, and one far from complimentary to the
dignity of the gods. In the epics considerable merit is attached to
a life of seclusion and ascetic practices by means of which man is
considered capable of acquiring supernatural powers equal or even
superior to those of the gods - a notion perhaps not unnaturally
springing from the pantheistic conception. Now, in cases of danger
being threatened to their own ascendancy by such practices, the
gods as a rule proceed to employ the usually successful expedient
of despatching some lovely nymph to lure the saintly men back to
worldly pleasures. Seeing that the epic poems, as repeated by
professional reciters, either in their original Sanskrit text, or
in their vernacular
versions, as well as dramatic compositions based on them, form to
this day the chief source of intellectual enjoyment for most
Hindus, the legendary matter contained in these heroic poems,
however marvellous and incredible it may appear, still enters
largely into the religious convictions of the people." These
popular recitals from the Ramayan are done into Gujarati in easy, flowing narrative verse. ..
by Premanand, the sweetest of our bards. They are read out by an
intelligent Brahman to a mixed audience of all classes and both sexes. It has
a perceptible influence on the Hindu character. I believe the
remarkable freedom from infidelity which is to be seen in most
Hindu families, in spite of their strange gregarious habits, can be
traced to that influence; and little wonder "(B. M. Malabari,
Gujarat and the
Gujaratis). Hence also the universal reverence paid to
serpents (raga) since those early days; though whether it
simply arose from the superstitious dread inspired by the insidious
reptile so fatal to man in India, or whether the verbal coincidence
with the name of the once-powerful nonAryan tribe of Nagas had
something to do with it must remain doubtful. Indian myth
represents them as a race of demons sprung from Kadru, the wife of
the sage Kasyapa, with a jewel in their heads which gives them.
their sparkling look; and inhabiting one of the seven beautiful
worlds below the earth (and above the hells), where they are ruled
over by three chiefs or kings, Sesha, Vasuki and Takshaka; their
fair daughters often entering into matrimonial alliances with men,
like the mermaids of
western legend.

In addition to such essentially mythological conceptions, we
meet in the religious life of this period with an element of more
serious aspect in the two gods, on one or other of whom the
religious fervour of the large majority of Hindus has ever since
concentrated itself, viz. Vishnu and Siva. Both these divine
figures have grown out of Vedic conceptions - the genial Vishnu
mainly out of a not very prominent solar deity of the same name;
whilst the stern Siva, i.e. the kind or gracious one -
doubtless a euphemistic name - has his prototype in the old fierce
storm-god Rudra, the" Roarer,"with certain additional
features derived from other deities, especially Pushan, the guardian of flocks and
bestower of prosperity, worked up therewith. The exact process of
the evolution of the two deities and their advance in popular
favour are still somewhat obscure. In the epic poems which may be
assumed to have taken their final shape in the early centuries
before and after the Christian era, their popular character, so
strikingly illustrated by their inclusion in the Brahmanical triad,
appears in full force; whilst their cult is likewise attested by
the coins and inscriptions of the early centuries of our era. The
co-ordination of the two gods in the Trimurti does not by any means
exclude a certain rivalry between them; but, on the contrary, a
supreme position as the true embodiment of the Divine Spirit is
claimed for each of them by their respective votaries, without,
however, an honourable, if subordinate, place being
refused to the rival deity, wherever the latter, as is not
infrequently the case, is not actually represented as merely
another form of the favoured god. Whilst at times a truly
monotheistic fervour manifests itself in the adoration of these two
gods, the polytheistic instincts of the people did not fail to
extend the pantheon by groups of new deities in connexion with
them. Two of such new gods actually pass as the sons of Siva and
his consort Parvati, viz. Skandaalso called Kumara (the youth),
Karttikeya, or Subrahmanya (in the south) - the six-headed war-lord
of the gods; and Ganese, the lord (or leader) of Siva's troupes of
attendants, being at the same time the elephant-headed, paunch-bellied god of wisdom;
whilst a third, Kama (Kamadeva) or
Kandarpa, the god of love, gets his popular epithet of Ananga," the
bodiless,"from his having once, in frolicsome play, tried the power
of his arrows upon Siva, whilst engaged in austere practices, when
a single glance from the third (forehead) eye of the angry god
reduced the mischievous urchin to ashes. For his chief attendant,
the great god (Mahadeva, Mahesvara) has already with him the" holy
"Nandi - presumably, though his
shape is not specified, identical in form as in name with Siva's
sacred bull of later times, the appropriate symbol of the god's reproductive power. But, in
this repect, we also meet in the epics with the first clear
evidence of what in after time became the prominent feature of the
worship of Siva and his consort all over India, viz. the feature
represented by the linga, or phallic symbol.

As regards Vishnu, the epic poems, including the supplement to
the Mahabharata, the Harivamsa, supply practically the entire
framework of legendary matter on which the later Vaishnava creeds
are based. The theory of Avataras which makes the deity - also
variously called Narayana, Purushottama, or Vasudeva - periodically
assume some material form in order to rescue the world from some great calamity, is
fully developed; the ten universally recognized" descents "being
enumerated in the larger poem. Though Siva, too, assumes various
forms, the incarnation theory is peculiarly characteristic of
Vaishnavism; and the fact that the principal hero of the Ramayana
(Rama), and one of the prominent warriors of the Mahabharata
(Krishna) become in this way identified with the supreme god, and
remain to this day the chief objects of the adoration of Vaishnava
sectaries, naturally imparts to these creeds a human interest and
sympathetic aspect which is wholly wanting in the worship of Siva.
It is, however, unfortunately but too true that in some of these
creeds the devotional ardour has developed features of a highly
objectionable character.

Even granting the reasonableness of the triple manifestation of
the Divine Spirit, how is one to reconcile all these idolatrous
practices, this worship of countless gods and godlings, demons and
spirits indwelling in every imaginable object round about us, with
the pantheistic doctrine of the Ekam Advitiyam," the One
without a Second "? The Indian theosophist would doubtless have
little difficulty in answering that question. For him there is only
the One Absolute Being, the one reality that is all in all; whilst
all the phenomenal existences and occurrences that crowd upon our senses are nothing more than an
illusion of the individual soul estranged for a time from its
divine source - an illusion only to be dispelled in the end by the
soul's fuller knowledge of its own true nature and its being one
with the eternal fountain
of blissful being. But to the man of ordinary understanding, unused
to the rarefied atmosphere of abstract thought, this
conception of a transcendental, impersonal Spirit and the unreality
of the phenomenal world can have no meaning: what he requires is a
deity that stands in intimate relation to things material and to
all that affects man's life. Hence the exoteric theory of
manifestations of the Supreme Spirit; and that not only the
manifestations implied in the triad of gods representing the
cardinal processes of mundane existence - creation, preservation,
and destruction or regeneration - but even such as would tend to
supply a rational explanation for superstitious imaginings of every
kind. For" the Indian philosophy does not ignore or hold aloof
from the religion of the masses: it underlies, supports and
interprets their polytheism. This may be accounted the keystone of the fabric of
Brahmanism, which accepts and even encourages the rudest forms of
idolatry, explaining
everything by giving it a higher meaning. It treats all the
worships as outward, visible signs of some spiritual truth, and is
ready to show how each particular image or rite is the symbol of some aspect of
universal divinity. The Hindus, like the pagans of antiquity, adore
natural objects and forces - a mountain, a river or an animal. The
Brahman holds all nature to be the vesture or cloak of indwelling,
divine energy, which inspires everything that produces awe or
passes man's understanding "(Sir Alfred C. Lyall,
Brahminism). During the early centuries of our era, whilst
Buddhism, where countenanced by the political rulers, was still
holding its own by the side of Brahmanism, sectarian belief in the
Hindu gods seems to have made steady progress. The caste system,
always calculated to favour unity of religious practice within its
social groups, must naturally have contributed to the advance of
sectarianism. Even greater was the support it received later on
from the Puranas, a class of poetical works of a partly legendary,
partly discursive and controversial character, mainly composed in
the interest of special deities, of which eighteen principal
(maha-purana) and as many secondary ones
(upa-purana) are recognized, the oldest of which may go
back to about the 4th century of our era. It was probably also
during this period that the female element was first definitely
admitted to a prominent place amongst the divine objects of
sectarian worship, in the shape of the wives of the principal gods
viewed as their sakti, or female energy, theoretically
identified with the Maya,
or cosmic Illusion, of the
idealistic Vedanta, and the Prakriti, or plastic matter,
of the materialistic Sankhya philosophy, as the primary source of
mundane things. The connubial relations of the deities may thus be
considered" to typify the mystical union of the two eternal
principles, spirit and matter, for the production and reproduction of the
universe."But whilst this privilege of divine worship was claimed
for the consorts of all the gods, it is principally to Siva's
consort, in one or other of her numerous forms, that adoration on
an extensive scale came to be offered by a special sect of votaries, the Saktas. In the
midst of these conflicting tendencies, an attempt was made, about
the latter part of the 8th century, by the distinguished Malabar theologian and
philosopher Sankara Acharya to restore the
Brahmanical creed to ?' something like its pristine purity,
and thus once more to bring about a uniform system of orthodox
Hindu belief. Though himself, like most Brahmans, apparently by
predilection a follower of Siva, his aim was the revival of the
doctrine of the Brahma as the one self-existent Being and the sole
cause of the universe; coupled with the recognition of the
practical worship of the orthodox pantheon, especially the gods of
the Trimurti, as manifestations of the supreme deity. The practical
result of his labours was the foundation of a new sect, the
Smartas, i.e. adherents of the smriti or
tradition, which has a numerous following amongst southern
Brahmans, and, whilst professing Sankara's doctrines, is usually
classed as one of the Saiva sects, its members adopting the
horizontal sectarial mark peculiar
to Saivas, consisting in their case of a triple line, the
tripundra, prepared from the ashes of burnt cow-dung and
painted on the forehead. Sankara also founded four Maths, or
convents, for Brahmans; the chief one being that of Sringeri in Mysore, the spiritual head
(Guru) of which wields considerable power, even that of excommunication, over the Saivas of
southern India. In northern India, the professed followers of
Sankara are mainly limited to certain classes of mendicants and
ascetics, although the tenets of this great Vedanta teacher may be
said virtually to constitute the creed of intelligent Brahmans
generally.

Whilst Sankara's chief title to fame rests on his philosophical
works, as the upholder of the strict monistic theory of Vedanta, he
doubtless played an important part in the partial remodelling of
the Hindu system of belief at a time when Buddhism was rapidly
losing ground in India. Not that there is any evidence of Buddhists
ever having been actually persecuted by the Brahmans, or still less
of Sankara himself ever having done so; but the traditional belief
in some personal god, as the principal representative of an
invisible, all-pervading deity, would doubtless appeal more
directly to the minds and hearts of the people than the colourless ethical
system promulgated by the Sakya saint. Nor do Buddhist places of
worship appear as a rule to have been destroyed by Hindu sectaries,
but they seem rather to have been taken over by them for their own
religious uses; at any rate there are to this day not a few Hindu
shrines, especially in Bengal, dedicated to Dharmaraj," the prince
of righteousness,"as the Buddha is commonly styled. That the tenets
and practices of so characteristic a faith as Buddhism, so long
prevalent in India, cannot but have left their marks on Hindu life
and belief may readily be assumed, though it is not so easy to lay
one's finger on the precise
features that might seem to betray such an influence. If the
general tenderness towards animals, based on the principle of
ahimsa, or inflicting no injury on sentient beings, be due
to Buddhist teaching, that influence must have made itself felt at
a comparatively early period, seeing that sentiments of a similar
nature are repeatedly urged in the Code of Manu. Thus, in v. 46-48," He who does not
willingly cause the pain of confinement and death to living beings,
but desires the good of all, obtains endless bliss. He who injures
no creature obtains without effort what he thinks of, what he
strives for, and what he fixes his mind on. Flesh-meat cannot be procured without injury to animals,
and the slaughter of animals is not conducive to heavenly bliss:
from flesh-meat, therefore, let man abstain."Moreover, in view of
the fact that Jainism, which originated about the same time as
Buddhism, inculcates the same principle, even to an extravagant
degree, it seems by no means improbable that the spirit of
kindliness towards living beings generally was already widely
diffused among the people when these new doctrines were
promulgated. To the same tendency doubtless is due the gradual
decline and ultimate discontinuance of animal sacrifices by all
sects except the extreme branch of Sakti-worshippers. In this
respect, the veneration shown to serpents and monkeys has, however,
to be viewed in a somewhat different light, as having a mythical
background; whilst quite a special significance attaches to the
sacred character assigned to the cow by all classes of Hindus, even
those who are not prepared to admit the claim of the Brahman to the
exalted position of the earthly god usually conceded to him. In the
Veda no tendency shows itself as yet towards rendering divine
honour to the cow; and though the importance assigned her in an
agricultural community is easily understood, still the exact
process of her deification and her identification with the mother
earth in the time of Manu and the epics requires further
elucidation. An idealized type of the useful quadruped - likewise
often identified with the earth - presents itself in the mythical
Cow of Plenty, or" wish-cow "(Kamadhenu, or Kamadugha,
i.e. wish-milker), already appearing in the Atharvaveda,
and in epic times assigned to Indra, or identified with Surabhi,"
the fragrant,"the sacred cow of the sage Vasishtha. Possibly the
growth of the legend of Krishna - his being reared at Go-kula
(cow-station); his tender
relations to the gopis, or cowherdesses, of Vrindavana;
his epithets Gopala," the cowherd,"and Govinda,"
cow-finder,"actually explained as" recoverer of the earth "in the
great epic, and the go-loka, or" cow-world,"assigned to
him as his heavenly abode - may have some connexion with the sacred
character ascribed to the cow from early times.

Since the time of Sankara, or for more than a thousand years,
the gods Vishnu and Siva, or Hari and Hara as
they are also. commonly called - with their wives, especially that
of the latter god - have shared between them the practical worship
of the vast majority of Hindus. But, though the people have thus
been divided between two different religious camps, sectarian
animosity has upon the whole kept within reasonable limits. In
fact, the respectable Hindu, whilst owning special allegiance to one of the
two gods as his ishta devata (favourite deity), will not
withhold his tribute of
adoration from the other gods of the pantheon. The high-caste
Brahman will probably keep at his home asalagram stone, the
favourite symbol of Vishnu, as well as the characteristic emblems
of Siva and his consort, to both of which he will do reverence in
the morning; and when he visits some holy place of pilgrimage, he
will not fail to pay his homage at both the Saiva and the Vaishnava
shrines there. Indeed," sectarian bigotry and exclusiveness are to
be found chiefly among the professional leaders of the modern
brotherhoods and their low-caste followers, who are taught to
believe that theirs are the only true gods, and that the rest do
not deserve any reverence whatever "(Jog. Nath). The same spirit of
toleration shows itself in the celebration of the numerous
religious festivals. Whilst some of these - e.g. the
Sankranti (called Pongal, i.e." boiled rice,"in the south), which marks the
entrance of the sun into the sign of Capricorn and the beginning of
its northward course (uttarayana) on the ist day of the
month Magha (c. Jan. 12); the Ganesa-caturthi, or 4th day of the light
fortnight of Bhadra (August - September), considered the birthday
of Ganesa, the god of wisdom; and the Holi, the Indian
Saturnalia in the month of Phalguna (February to March) - have
nothing of a sectarian tendency about them; others again, which are
of a distinctly sectarian character - such as the Krishna
janmashtami, the birthday of Krishna on the 8th day of the
dark half of Bhadra, or (in the south) of Sravana (July-August),
the Durgapuja and the Dipavali, or lamp feast, celebrating Krishna's
victory over the demon Narakasura, on the last two days of Asvina
(September-October) - are likewise observed and heartily joined in
by the whole community irrespective of sect. Widely different,
however, as is the character of the two leading gods are also the
modes of worship practised by their votaries.

Siva has at all times been the favourite god of the
Brahmans,' and his worship is accordingly more widely extended than
that of his rival, especially in southern India. Indeed there is
hardly a village in India which cannot boast of a shrine dedicated to Siva, and containing the emblem of his reproductive power;
for almost the only form in which the" Great God "is adored is the
Linga, consisting usually of an upright cylindrical block
of marble or other stone,
mostly resting on a circular perforated slab. The mystic nature of
these emblems seems, however, to be but little understood by the
common people; and, as H. H. Wilson remarks," notwithstanding the
acknowledged purport of this worship, it is but justice to state
that it is unattended in Upper India by any indecent or indelicate
ceremonies, and it requires a rather lively imagination to trace
any resemblance in its symbols to the objects they are supposed to
represent."In spite, however, of its wide diffusion, and the vast number of shrines
dedicated to it, the worship of Siva has never assumed a really
popular character, especially in northern India, being attended
with scarcely any solemnity or display of emotional spirit. The
temple, which usually stands in the middle of a court, is as a rule
a building of very moderate dimensions, consisting either of a
single square chamber, surmounted by a pyramidal structure, or of a
chamber for the linga and a small vestibule. The worshipper, having first
circumambulated the shrine as often as he pleases, keeping it at
his right-hand side, steps up to the threshold of the sanctum, and presents his
offering of flowers or fruit, which the officiating priest
receives; he then prostrates himself, or merely lifts his hands -
joined so as to leave a hollow space between the palms - to his
forehead, muttering a short prayer, and takes his departure.
Amongst the many thousands of Lingas, twelve are usually regarded
as of especial sanctity, one of which, that of Somnath in Gujarat, where Siva is worshipped
as" the lord of Soma,"was, however, shattered by Mahmud of
Ghazni; whilst another, representing Siva as
Visvesvara, or" Lord of the Universe,"is the chief object
of adoration at Benares, the
great centre of Siva-worship. The Saivas of southern India, on the
other hand, single out as peculiarly sacred five of their temples
which are supposed to enshrine as many characteristic aspects
(linga) of the god in the form of the five elements, the most holy
of these being the shrine of Chidambaram (i.e." thoughtether ") in S. Arcot, supposed to contain the ether-linga. According to Pandit S.
M. Natesa (Hindu Feasts, Fasts and
Ceremonies)," the several forms of the god Siva in these
sacred shrines are considered to be the bodies or casements of the
soul whose ' Siva is said to have first appeared in the beginning
of the present age as Sveta, the White, for the purpose of
benefiting the Brahmans, and he is invariably painted white; whilst
Vishnu, when pictured, is always of a dark-blue colour.

natural bases are the five elements - earth, water, fire, air
and ether. The apprehension of God in the last of these
five as ether is, according to the Saiva school of philosophy, the
highest form of worship, for it is not the worship of God in a
tangible form, but the worship of what, to ordinary minds, is
vacuum, which nevertheless leads to the attainment of a knowledge
of the all-pervading without physical accessories in the shape of
any linga, which is, after all, an emblem. That this is the case at
Chidambaram is known to every Hindu, for if he ever asks the
priests to show him the God in the temple he is pointed to an empty
space in the holy of holies, which has been termed the Akasa, or
ether-linga."But, however congenial this refined symbolism may be
to the worshipper of a speculative turn of mind, it is difficult to
see how it could ever satisfy the religious wants of the common man
little given to abstract conceptions of this kind.

From early times, detachment from the world and the practice of
austerities have been regarded in India as peculiarly conducive to
a spirit of godliness, and ultimately to a state of ecstatic
communion with the deity. On these grounds it was actually laid
down as a rule for a man solicitous for his spiritual welfare to
pass the last two of the four stages ((anima) of his life
in such conditions of renunciation and self-restraint. Though there is hardly a sect
which has not contributed its share to the element of religious mendicancy and asceticism so prevalent
in India, it is in connexion with the Siva-cult that these
tendencies have been most extensively cultivated. Indeed, the personality of the
stern God himself exhibits this feature in a very marked degree,
whence the term mahayogi or" great ascetic "is often
applied to him.

Of Saiva mendicant and ascetic
orders, the members of which are considered more or less followers
of Sankara Acharya, the following may be mentioned: (I)
Dandis, or staff-bearers, who carry a wand with a piece of
red cloth, containing the sacred cord, attached to it, and also
wear one or more pieces of cloth of the same colour. They worship
Siva in his form of Bhairava, the" terrible."A sub-section of this
order are the Dandi Dasnamis, or Dandi of ten names, so called from
their assuming one of the names of Sankara's four disciples, and
six of their pupils. (2) Yogis (or popularly, Jogis),
i.e. adherents of the Yoga philosophy and the system of
ascetic practices enjoined by it with the view of mental abstraction and the
supposed attainment of superhuman powers - practices which, when
not merely pretended, but rigidly carried out, are only too apt to
produce vacuity of mind and wild fits of frenzy. In these
degenerate days their supernatural powers consist chiefly in conjuring, sooth-saying,
and feats of jugglery, by which they seldom fail in imposing upon a
credulous public. (3) Sannyasis, devotees who" renounce
"earthly concerns, an order not confined either to the Brahmanical
caste or to the Saiva persuasion. Those of the latter are in the
habit of smearing their bodies with ashes, and wearing a tiger-skin and a necklace or rosary of rudraksha
berries (Elaeocarpus Ganitrus, lit." Rudra's eye "), sacred to
Siva, and allowing their hair to grow till it becomes matted and
filthy. (4) Parama-hamsas, i.e." supreme geese (or
swans),"a term applied to the world-soul with which they claim to
be identical. This is the highest order of asceticism, members of
which are supposed to be solely engaged in meditating on the
Brahma, and to be" equally indifferent to pleasure or pain,
insensible of heat or cold, and incapable of satiety or want."Some
of them go about naked, but the majority are clad like the Dandis.
(5) Aghora Panthis, a vile and disreputable class of
mendicants, now rarely met with. Their filthy habits and disgusting
practices of gross promiscuous feeding, even to the extent of
eating offal and dead men's
flesh, look almost like a direct repudiation of the strict
Brahmanical code of ceremonial purity and cleanliness, and of the
rules regulating the matter and manner of eating and drinking; and
they certainly make them objects of loathing and terror wherever
they are seen.

On the general effect of the manner of life led by
Sadhus or" holy men,"a recent observer (J. C. Oman, Mystics, Ascetics and
Saints of India, p. 273) remarks:" Sadlzuism, whether
perpetuating the peculiar idea of the efficiency of austerities for
the acquisition of far-reaching powers over natural phenomena, or
bearing its testimony to the belief in the indispensableness of
detachment from the world as a preparation for the ineffable joy of
ecstatic communion with the Divine Being, has undoubtedly tended to
keep before men's eyes, as the highest ideal, a life of purity,
self-restraint, and contempt of the world and human affairs. It has
also necessarily maintained amongst the laity a sense of the
righteous claims of the poor upon the charity of the more affluent
members of the community. Moreover, sadhuism, by the
multiplicity of the independent sects which have arisen in India,
has engendered and favoured a spirit of tolerance which cannot
escape the notice of the most superficial observer."An independent
Saiva sect, or, indeed, the only strictly Saiva sect, are the
Vira Saivas, more commonly called Lingayats
(popularly Lingaits) or Lingavats, from their practice of
wearing on their person a phallic emblem of Siva, made of copper or silver, and usually enclosed in a case suspended
from the neck by a string. Apparently from the movable nature of
their badge, their Gurus are called Jangamas ("
movable "). This sect counts numerous adherents in southern India;
the Census Report of 1901 recording nearly a million and a half,
including some 70 or 80 different, mostly endogamous, castes. The
reputed founder, or rather reformer, of the sect was Basava (or
Basaba), a Brahman of the Belgaum district who seems to have lived in the
11th or 12th century. According to the Basava-purana he early in
life renounced his caste and went to reside at Kalyana, then the
capital of the Chalukya
kingdom, and later on at Sangamesvara near Ratnagiri, where he was initiated into the
Vira Saiva faith which he subsequently made it his life's work to
propagate. His doctrine, which may be said to constitute a kind of
reaction against the severe sacerdotalism of Sankara, has spread over
all classes of the southern community, most of the priests of Saiva
temples there being adherents of it; whilst in northern India its
votaries are only occasionally met with, and then mostly as
mendicants, leading about a neatly caparisoned bull as representing
Siva's sacred bull Nandi. Though the Lingayats still show
a certain animosity towards the Brahmans, and in the Census lists
are accordingly classes as an independent group beside the Hindus,
still they can hardly be excluded from the Hindu community, and are
sure sooner or _later to find their -way back to the Brahmanical fold.

Vishnu, whilst less popular with Brahmans than his rival, has
from early times proved to the lay mind a more attractive object of
adoration on account of the genial and, so to speak, romantic
character of his mythical personality. It is not, however, so much
the original figure of the god himself that enlists the sympathies
of his adherents as the additional elements it has received through
the theory of periodical" descents "(avatara) or
incarnations applied to this deity. Whilst the Saiva philosophers
do not approve of the notion of incarnations, as being derogatory
to the dignity of the deity, the Brahmans have nevertheless thought
fit to adopt it as apparently a convenient expedient for bringing
certain tendencies of popular worship within the pale of their
system, and probably also for counteracting the Buddhist doctrines;
and for this purpose Vishnu would obviously offer himself as the
most attractive figure in the Brahmanical trinity. Whether the
incarnation theory started from the original solar nature of the
god suggestive of regular visits to the world of men, or in what
other way it may have originated, must remain doubtful. Certain,
however, it is that at least one of his Avatars is clearly based on
the Vedic conception of the sun-god, viz. that of the dwarf who claims as much ground as
he can cover by three steps, and then gains the whole universe by
his three mighty strides. Of the ten or more Avatars, assumed by
different authorities, only two have entered to any considerable
extent into the religious worship of the people, viz. those of
Rama (or Ramachandra) and Krishna, the favourite
heroes of epic romance. That these two figures would appeal far
more strongly to the hearts and feelings of the people, especially
the warlike Kshatriyas, 1 than the austere Siva is only what might
have been expected; and, indeed, since the time of the epics their
cult seems never to have lacked numerous adherents. But, on the
other hand, the essentially human nature of these two gods 1 As in
the case of Siva's traditional white complexion, it may not be
without significance, from a racial point of view, that Vishnu,
Rama and Krishna have various darker shades of colour attributed to
them, viz. blue, hyacinthine, and dark azure or dark brown respectively. The names of
the two heroes meaning simply" black "or" dark,"the blue tint may
originally have belonged to Vishnu, who is also called
pitavasas, dressed in yellow garment, i.e. the
colours of sky and sun combined.

would naturally tend to modify the character of the relations
between worshipper and worshipped, and to impart to the modes and
forms of adoration features of a more popular and more human kind.
And accordingly it is exactly in connexion with these two
incarnations of Vishnu, especially that of Krishna, that a new
spirit was infused into the religious life of the people by the
sentiment of fervent devotion to the deity, as it found expression
in certain portions of the epic poems, especially the
Bhagavadgita, and in the Bhagavatapurana (as
against the more orthodox Vaishnava works of this class such as the
Vishnupurana), and was formulated into a regular doctrine of faith
in the Sandilya-sutra, and ultimately translated into
practice by the Vaishnava reformers.

The first successful Vaishnava reaction against Sankara's
reconstructed creed was led by Ramanuja, a southern Brahman of the
12th century. His followers, the Ramanujas, or Sri-Vaishnavas as
they are usually called, worship Y Y, P Vishnu (Narayana) with his
consort Sri or Lakshmi (the
goddess of beauty and fortune), or their incarnations Rama with
Sita and Krishna with Rukmini. Ramanuja's doctrine, which is
especially directed against the Linga-worship, is essentially based
on the tenets of an old Vaishnava sect, the Bhagavatas or
Pancharatras, who worshipped the Supreme Being under the name of
Vasudeva (subsequently identified with Krishna, as the son of
Vasudeva, who indeed is credited by some scholars with the
foundation of that monotheistic creed). The sectarial mark of the
Ramanujas resembles a capital U (or, in the case of another
division, a Y), painted with a white clay called gopichandana, between the hair and the
root of the nose, with a red or
yellow vertical stroke (representing the female element) between
the two white lines. They also usually wear, like all Vaishnavas, a
necklace of tulasi, or basil wood, and a rosary of seeds of the same shrub or of the lotus. Their most important shrines are those of
Srirangam near Trichinopoly,
Mailkote in Mysore, Dvaraka (the city of Krishna) on the Kathiawar coast, and
Jagannath in Orissa; all of
them decorated with Vishnu's emblems, the tulasi plant and salagram
stone. The Ramanuja Brahmans are most punctilious in the
preparation of their food and in regard to the privacy of their
meals, before taking which they have to bathe and put on woollen or
silk garments. Whilst Sankara's
mendicant followers were prohibited to touch fire and had to
subsist entirely on the charity of Brahman householders, Ramanuja,
on the contrary, not only allowed his followers to use fire, but
strictly forbade their eating any food cooked, or even seen, by a
stranger. On the speculative side, Ramanuja also met Sankara's
strictly monistic theory by another recognizing Vishnu as identical
with Brahma as the Supreme Spirit animating the material world as
well as the individual souls which have become estranged from God
through unbelief, and can only attain again conscious union with
him through devotion or love (bhakti). His tenets are
expounded in various works, especially in his commentaries on the
Vedantasutras and the Bhagavadgita. The followers of Ramanuja have
split into two sects, a northern one, recognizing the Vedas as
their chief authority, and a southern one, basing their tenets on
the Nalayir, a Tamil work of the Upanishad order. In point of
doctrine, they differ in their view of the relation between God
Vishnu and the human soul; whilst the former sect define it by the
ape theory, which makes the soul
cling to God as the young ape does to its mother, the latter
explain it by the cat
theory, by which Vishnu himself seizes and rescues the souls as the
mother cat does her young ones.

Madh y a Acharya, another distinguished Vedanta teacher
and founder of a Vaishnava sect, born in Kanara in A.D. 1199, was less intolerant of the
Linga cult than Ramanuja, but seems rather to have aimed at a
reconciliation of the Saiva and Vaishnava forms of worship. The
Madhvas or Madhvacharis favour Krishna and his
consort as their special objects of adoration, whilst images of
Siva, Parvati, and their son Ganesa are, however, likewise admitted
and worshipped in some of their temples, the most important of
which is at Udipi in South Kanara, with eight monasteries connected
with it.

This shrine contains an image of Krishna which is said to have
been rescued from the wreck of a
ship which brought it from Dvaraka, where it was supposed to have
been set up of old by no other than Krishna's friend Arjuna, one of the five Pandava
princes. Followers of the Madh y a creed are but rarely met with in
Upper India. Their sectarial mark is like the U of the
SriVaishnavas, except that their central line is black instead of
red or yellow. Madhva - who after his initiation assumed the name
Anandatirtha - composed numerous Sanskrit works, including
commentaries on the Brahma sutras (i.e. the Vedanta aphorisms), the
Gita, the Rigveda and many Upanishads. His philosophical theory was
a dualistic one, postulating distinctness of nature for the divine
and the human soul, and hence independent existence, instead of
absorption, after the completion of mundane existence.

The Ramanandis or Ramavats (popularly Ramats) are a numerous
northern sect of similar tenets to those of the Ramanujas. Indeed
its founder, Ramananda, who probably flourished in the latter part
of the 14th century, according to the traditional account, was
originally a SriVaishnava monk,
and, having come under the suspicion of laxity in observing the
strict rules of food during his peregrinations, and been ordered by
his superior (Mahant) to take his meals apart from his brethren,
left the monastery in a huff and set up a schismatic math of his
own at Benares. The sectarial mark of his sect differs but slightly
from that of the parent stock. The distinctive features of their
creed consist in their making Rama and Sita, either singly or
conjointly, the chief objects of their adoration, instead of Vishnu
and Lakshmi, and their attaching little or no importance to the
observance of privacy in the cooking and eating of their food.
Their mendicant members, usually known as Vairagis, are, like the
general body of the sect, drawn from all castes without
distinction. Thus, the founder's twelve chief disciples include,
besides Brahmans, a weaver, a currier, a Rajput, a Jat and a barber
- for, they argue, seeing that Bhagavan, the Holy One (Vishnu),
became incarnate even in animal form, a Bhakta (believer) may be
born even in the lowest of castes. Ramananda's teaching was thus of
a distinctly levelling and popular character; and, in accordance
therewith, the Bhakta-mala and other authoritative writings of the
sect are composed, not in Sanskrit, but in the popular dialects. A
follower of this creed was the distinguished poet Tulsidas, the
composer of the beautiful Hindi
version of the Ramayana and other works which" exercise more
influence upon the great body of Hindu population than the whole
voluminous series of Sanskrit composition "(H. H. Wilson).

The traditional list of Ramananda's immediate disciples includes
the name of Kabir, the weaver, a remarkable man who would
accordingly have lived in the latter part of the 15th century, and
who is claimed by both Hindus and Moslems as having been born
within their fold. The story goes that, having been deeply
impressed by Ramananda's teaching, he sought to attach himself to
him; and, one day at Benares, in stepping down the ghat at daybreak to bathe in the Ganges, and
putting himself in the way of the teacher, the latter, having
inadvertently struck him with his foot, uttered his customary
exclamation" Ram Ram,"which, being
also the initiatory formula of the sect, was claimed by Kabir as
such, making him Ramananda's disciple. Be this as it may, Kabir's own
reformatory activity lay in the direction of a compromise between
the Hindu and the Mahommedan creeds, the religious practices of
both of which he criticized with equal severity. His followers, the
Kabir Panthis (" those following Kabir's path "), though neither
worshipping the gods of the pantheon, nor observing the rites and
ceremonial of the Hindus, are nevertheless in close touch with the
Vaishnava sects, especially the Ramavats, and generally worship
Rama as the supreme deity, when they do not rather address their
homage, in hymns and otherwise,
to the founder of their creed himself. Whilst very numerous,
particularly amongst the low-caste population, in western, central
and northern India, resident adherents of Kabir's doctrine are rare
in Bengal and the south; although there is hardly a town in India
where strolling beggars may not be found singing songs of Kabir in
the original or as translated into the local dialects." The
mendicants of this creed, however, never actually solicit alms; and, indeed, "the quakerlike
spirit of the sect, their abhorrence of all violence, their regard
for truth and the inobtrusiveness of their opinions render them
very inoffensive members of the state" (H. H. Wilson). The
doctrines of Kabir are taught, mostly in the form of dialogues, in
numerous Hindi works, composed by his disciples and adherents, who,
however, usually profess to give the teacher's own words.

The peculiar conciliatory tendencies of Kabir were carried
on with even greater zeal from the latter part of
the 15th century by one of his followers, Nanak Shah, the promulgator of the creed of the
Nanak Shahis or Sikhs - i.e. (Sanskr.)
sishya, disciples, whose guru, or teacher, he called
himself - a peaceful sect at first until, in consequence of
Mahommedan persecution, a martial spirit was infused into it by the
tenth, and last, guru, Govind Shah, changing it into a political
organization. Whilst originally more akin in its principles to the
Moslem faith, the sect seems latterly to have shown tendencies
towards drifting back to the Hindu pale.

Of Ramananda's disciples and successors several others, besides
Kabir, have established schismatic divisions of their own, which do
not, however, offer any very marked differences of creed. The most
important of these, the Dadu Panthi sect, founded by Dadu about the
year 1600, has a numerous following in Ajmir and Marwar, one
section of whom, the Nagas, engage largely in military service,
whilst the others are either householders or mendicants. The
followers of this creed wear no distinctive sectarial mark or
badge, except a skull-cap; nor
do they worship any visible image of any deity, the repetition
(japa) of the name of Rama being the only kind of
adoration practised by them.

Although the Vaishnava sects hitherto noticed, in their
adoration of Vishnu and his incarnations, Krishna and Ramachandra,
usually associate with these gods their Brot wives, as
their saktis, or female energies, the sexual element is,
as a rule, only just allowed sufficient scope to enhance the
emotional character of the rites of worship. In some of the later
Vaishnava creeds, on the other hand, this element is far from being
kept within the bounds of moderation and decency. The favourite
object of adoration with adherents of these sects is Krishna with
his mate - but not the devoted
friend and counsellor of the Pandavas
and deified hero of epic song, nor the ruler of Dvaraka and wedded
lord of Rukmini, but the juvenile Krishna, Govinda or Bala Gopala, "the cowherd lad," the
foster son of the cowherd Nanda of Gokula, taken up with his
amorous sports with the Gopis, or wives of the cowherds of
Vrindavana (Brindaban,near Mathura on the Yamuna), especially his
favourite mistress Radha
or Radhika. This episode in
the legendary life of Krishna has every appearance of being a later
accretion. After barely
a few allusions to it in the epics, it bursts forth full-blown in
the Harivansa, the Vishnu-purana, the Narada-Pancharatra and the
Bhagavata-purana, the tenth canto of which, dealing with the life of Krishna,
has become, through vernacular versions, especially the Hindi
Prem-sagar, or "ocean
of love," a favourite romance all over India, and has doubtless
helped largely to popularize the cult of Krishna. Strange to say,
however, no mention is as yet made by any of these works of
Krishna's favourite Radha; it is only in another Purana - though
scarcely deserving that designation - that she makes her
appearance, viz. in the Brahma-vaivarta, in which Krishna's amours
in Nanda's cow-station are dwelt upon in fulsome and wearisome
detail; whilst the poet Jayadeva, in the 12th century, made her
love for the gay and inconstant boy the theme of his beautiful, if
highly voluptuous, lyrical drama, Gita-govinda. The
earliest of the sects which associate Radha with Krishna in their
worship is that of the Nimavats, founded by Nimbaditya or Nimbarka
(i.e. "the sun of the Nimba tree"), a teacher of uncertain date, said to have
been a Telugu Brahman who
subsequently established himself at Mathura (Muttra) on the Yamuna,
where the headquarters of his sect have remained ever since. The
Mahant of their monastery at Dhruva Kshetra near Mathura, who
claims direct descent from Nimbarka, is said to place the
foundation of that establishment as far back as the 5th century -
doubtless an exaggerated claim; but if Jayadeva, as is alleged, and
seems by no means improbable, was really a follower of Nimbarka,
this teacher must have flourished, at latest, in the early part of
the 12th century. He is indeed taken by some authorities to be
identical with the mathematician Bhaskara Acharya, who is known to
'have completed his chief work in A.D. 1150. It is worthy of
remark, in this respect, that - in accordance with Ramanuja's and
Nimbarka's philosophical theories - Jayadeva's presentation of
Krishna's fickle love for Radha is usually interpreted in a
mystical sense, as allegorically depicting the human soul's
striving, through love, for reunion with God, and its ultimate attainment,
after many backslidings, of the longed-for goal. As the chief
authority of their tenets, the Nimavats recognize the
Bhagavata-purana; though several works, ascribed to Nimbarka -
partly of a devotional character and partly expository of Vedanta
topics - are still extant, Adherents of this sect are fairly
numerous in northern India, their frontal mark consisting of the
usual two perpendicular white lines, with, however, a circular
black spot between them.

Of greater importance than the sect just noticed, because of
their far larger following, are the two sects founded early in the
16th century by Vallabha (Ballabha) Acharya and Chaitanya. In the
forms of worship favoured by votaries of these creeds the emotional
and erotic elements are allowed yet freer scope than in those that
preceded them; and, as an effective auxiliary to these tendencies, the use of the
vernacular dialects in prayers and hymns of praise takes an
important part in the religious service. The Vallabhacharis, or, as
they are usually called, from the title of their spiritual heads,
the Gokulastha Gosains, i.e. " the cow-lords
(gosvamin) residing in Gokula," are very numerous in
western and central
India. Vallabha, the son of a Telinga Brahman, after extensive
journeyings all over India, settled at Gokula near Mathura, and set
up a shrine with an image of Krishna Gopala. About the year 1673,
in consequence of the fanatical persecutions of the Mogulemperor, this image was transferred to
Nathdvara in Udaipur
(Mewar), where the shrine of Srinatha ("the lord of Sri,"
i.e. Vishnu) continues to be the chief centre of worship
for adherents of this creed; whilst seven other images, transferred
from Mathura at the same time, are located at different places in
Rajputana. Vallabha himself went subsequently to reside at Benares,
where he died. In the doctrine of this Vaishnava prophet, the
adualistic theory of Sankara is resorted to as justifying a joyful
and voluptuous cult of the deity. For, if the human soul is
identical with God, the practice of austerities must be discarded
as directed against God, and it is rather by a free indulgence of the natural
appetites and the pleasures of life that man's love for God will
best be shown. The followers of his creed, amongst whom there are
many wealthy merchants and bankers, direct their worship chiefly to
Gopal Lal, the boyish Krishna of Vrindavana, whose image is
sedulously attended like a revered living person eight times a day
- from its early rising from its couch up to its retiring to repose
at night. The sectarial mark of the adherents consists of two red
perpendicular lines, meeting in a semicircle at the root of the
nose, and having a round red spot painted between them. Their
principal doctrinal authority is the Bhagavata-purana, as commented
upon by Vallabha himself, who was also the author of several other
Sanskrit works highly esteemed by his followers. In this sect,
children are solemnly admitted to full membership at the early age
of four, and even two, years of age, when a rosary, or necklace, of
108 beads of basil (tulsi) wood is passed round their necks, and
they are taught the use of the octo-syllabic formula
Sri-Krishnah saranam mama, " Holy Krishna is my refuge."
Another special feature of this sect is that their spiritual heads,
the Gosains, also called Maharajas, so far from submitting
themselves to self-discipline and austere practices, adorn
themselves in splendid garments, and allow themselves to be
habitually regaled by their adherents with choice kinds of food;
and being regarded as the living representatives of the "lord of
the Gopis" himself, they claim and receive in their own persons all
acts of attachment and
worship due to the deity, even, it is alleged, to the extent of
complete self-surrender. In the final judgment of the famous libel case of the Bombay Maharajas,
before the Supreme Court of Bombay, in January 1862, these
improprieties were severely commented upon; and though so unsparing
a critic of Indian sects as Jogendra Nath seems not to believe in
actual immoral practices on the part of the Maharajas, still he
admits that "the corrupting influence of a religion, that can make
its female votaries address amorous songs to their spiritual
guides, must be very great." A modern offshoot of Vallabha's creed,
formed with the avowed object of purging it of its objectionable
features, was started, in the early years of the 19th century, by
Sahajananda, a Brahman of the Oudh country, who
subsequently assumed the name of Svami Narayana. Having entered on
his missionary labours at Ahmadabad, and afterwards removed to
Jetalpur, where he had a meeting with Bishop Heber, he subsequently
settled at the village of Wartal, to the north-west of Baroda, and erected a temple to
LakshmiNarayana, which, with another at Ahmadabad, forms the two
chief centres of the sect, each being presided over by a Maharaja.
Their worship is addressed to Narayana, i.e. Vishnu, as
the Supreme Being, together with Lakshmi, as well as to Krishna and
Radha. The sect is said to be gaining ground in Gujarat. Chaitanya,
the founder of the great Vaishnava sect of Bengal, was the son of a
high-caste Brahman of Nadiya, the famous Bengal seat of Sanskrit
learning, where he was born in 1485, two years after the birth of
Martin Luther,
the German reformer. Having married in due time, and a second time
after the death of his first wife, he lived as a "householder"
(grihastha) till the age of 24, when he renounced his
family ties and set out as a religious mendicant
(vairagin), visiting during the next six years the
principal places of pilgrimage in northern India, and preaching with remarkable
success his doctrine of Bhakti, or passionate devotion to Krishna,
as the Supreme Deity. He subsequently made over to his principal
disciples the task of consolidating his community, and passed the
last twelve years of his life at Puri in Orissa, the great centre of the worship of
Vishnu as Jagannatha, or "lord of the world," which he remodelled
in accordance with his doctrine, causing the mystic songs of
Jayadeva to be recited before the images in the morning and evening
as part of the daily service; and, in fact, as in the other
Vaishnava creeds, seeking to humanize divine adoration by bringing
it into accord with the
experience of human love. To this end, music, dancing, singing-parties
(sankirtan), theatricals - in short anything calculated to
produce the desired impression - would prove welcome to him. His
doctrine of Bhakti distinguishes five grades of devotional feeling
in the Bhaktas, or faithful adherents: viz.
(santi) calm contemplation of the deity; (dasya)
active servitude; (sakhya) friendship or personal regard;
(vatsalya) tender affection as between parents and children;
(madhurya) love or passionate attachment, like that which
the Gopis felt for Krishna. Chaitanya also seems to have done much
to promote the celebration on an imposing scale of the great Puri
festival of the Ratha-yatra, or "car-procession," in the month of Ashadha, when,
amidst multitudes of pilgrims, the image of Krishna, together with
those of his brother Balarama and his sister Subhadra, is drawn
along, in a huge car, by the devotees. Just as this festival was,
and continues to be, attended by people from all parts of India,
without distinction of caste or sex, so also were all classes, even
Mahommedans, admitted by Chaitanya as members of his sect. Whilst
numerous observances are recommended as more or less meritorious,
the ordinary form of worship is a very simple one, consisting as it
does mainly of the constant repetition of names of Krishna, or
Krishna and Radha, which of itself is considered sufficient to
ensure future bliss. The partaking of flesh food and spirituous
liquor is strictly prohibited. By the followers of this sect, also,
an extravagant degree of reverence is habitually paid to their
gurus or spiritual heads. Indeed, Chaitanya himself, as
well as his immediate disciples, have come to be regarded as
complete or partial incarnations of the deity to whom adoration is
due, as to Krishna himself; and their modern successors, the
Gosains, share to the fullest extent in the devout attentions of
the worshippers. Chaitanya's movement, being chiefly directed
against the vile practices of the Saktas, then very prevalent in
Bengal, was doubtless prompted by the best and purest of
intentions; but his own doctrine of divine, though all too human,
love was, like that of Vallabha, by no means free from corruptive
tendencies, - yet, how far these tendencies have worked their way,
who would say? On this point, Dr W. W. Hunter - who is of opinion
that "the death of the reformer marks the beginning of the
spiritual decline of Vishnu-worship," observes (Orissa, i.
III), " The most deplorable corruption of Vishnu-worship at
the present day is that which has covered the temple walls with
indecent sculptures, and filled its innermost sanctuaries with
licentious rites". .. yet. .. "it is difficult for a person not a
Hindu to pronounce upon the real extent of the evil. None but a
Hindu can enter any of the larger temples, and none but a Hindu
priest really knows the truth about their inner mysteries"; whilst
the well-known native scholar Babu
Rajendralal Mitra points out (Antiquities of Orissa, i.
III) that "such as they are, these sculptures date from centuries
before the birth of Chaitanya, and cannot, therefore, be attributed
to his doctrines or to his followers. As a Hindu by birth, and a
Vaishnava by family religion, I have had the freest access to the
innermost sanctuaries and to the most secret of scriptures. I have
studied the subject most extensively, and have had opportunities of
judging which no European can have, and I have no hesitation in
saying that, ' the mystic songs' of Jayadeva and the ' ocean of
love ' notwithstanding, there is nothing in the rituals of
Jagannatha which can be called licentious." Whilst in Chaitanya's
creed, Krishna, in his relations to Radha, remains at least
theoretically the chief partner, an almost inevitable step was
taken by some minor sects in attaching the greater importance to
the female element, and making Krishna's love for his mistress the
guiding sentiment of their faith. Of these sects, it will suffice
to mention that of the Radha-Vallabhis, started in the latter part
of the 16th century, who worship Krishna as Radhavallabha, "the darling of Radha." The
doctrines and practices of these sects clearly verge upon those obtaining in the third principal
division of Indian sectarians which will now be considered.

The Saktas, as we have seen, are worshippers of the
sakti, or the female principle as a primary factor in the
creation and reproduction of the universe. And as each of the
principal gods is supposed to have associated with him his own
particular sakti, as an indispensable complement enabling
him to properly perform his cosmic functions, adherents of this
persuasion might be expected to be recruited from all sects. To a
certain extent this is indeed the case; but though Vaishnavism, and
especially the Krishna creed, with its luxuriant growth of erotic
legends, might have seemed peculiarly favourable to a development
in this direction, it is practically only in connexion with the
Saiva system that an independent cult of the female principle has
been developed; whilst in other sects - and, indeed, in the
ordinary Saiva cult as well - such worship, even where it is at all
prominent, is combined with, and subordinated to, that of the male
principle. What has made this cult attach itself more especially to
the Saiva creed is doubtless the character of Siva as the type of
reproductive power, in addition to his function as destroyer which,
as we shall see, is likewise reflected in some of the forms of his
Sakti. The theory of the god and his Sakti as cosmic principles is
perhaps already foreshadowed in the Vedic couple of Heaven and Earth, whilst in the
speculative treatises of the later Vedic period, as well as in the
post-Vedic Brahmanical writings, the assumption of the
self-existent being dividing himself into a male and a female half
usually forms the starting-point of cosmic evolution.' In the later
Saiva mythology this
theory finds its artistic representation in Siva's androgynous form
of Ardha-narisa, or "halfwoman-lord," typifying the union of the
male and female energies; the male half in this form of the deity
occupying the right-hand, and the female the left-hand side. In
accordance with this type of productive energy, the Saktas divide
themselves into two distinct groups, according to whether they
attach the greater importance to the male or to the female
principle; viz. the Dakshinacharis, or
"right-hand-observers" (also called Dakshina-margis, or
followers "of the right-hand path"), and the Vamacharis,
or "left-hand-observers" (or Vama-margis, followers "of
the left path"). Though some of the Puranas, the chief repositories
of sectarian doctrines, enter largely into Sakta topics, it is only
in the numerous Tantras that these are fully and systematically
developed. In these works, almost invariably composed in the form
of a colloquy, Siva, as a rule, in answer to questions asked by his
consort Parvati, unfolds the mysteries of this occult creed.

The principal seat of Sakta worship is the north-eastern part of
India - Bengal, Assam and Behar. The
great majority of its adherents profess to follow the right-hand
practice; and apart from the implied purport and the emblems of the
cult, their mode of adoration does not seem to offer any very
objectionable features. And even amongst the adherents of the
left-hand mode of worship, many of these are said to follow it as a
matter of family tradition rather than of religious conviction, and
to practise it in a sober and temperate manner; whilst only an
extreme section - the so-called Kaulas or
Kulinas, who appeal to a spurious Upanishad, the
Kaulopanishad, as the divine authority of their tenets - persist in
carrying on the mystic and licentious rites taught in many of the
Tantras. But strict secrecy being enjoined in the performance of
these rites, it is not easy to check any statements made on this
point. The Sakta cult is, however, known to be especially prevalent
- though apparently not in a very extreme form - amongst members of
the very respectable Kayastha or writer caste of Bengal, and as
these are largely employed as clerks and accountants in Upper India, there is reason
to fear that their vicious practices are gradually being
disseminated through them.

The divine object of the adoration of the Saktas, then, is
Siva's wife - the Devi (goddess), Mahadevi (great
goddess), or Jagan-mata (mother of the world) - in one or
other of her numerous forms, benign or terrible. The forms in which
she is worshipped in Bengal are of the latter category, viz. Durga, " the unapproachable," and Kali, " the black one," or, as
some take it, the wife of Kala, " time," or death the
great dissolver, viz. Siva. In honour of the former, the
Durga-puja is celebrated ' This notion not improbably took
its origin in the mystic cos - mogonic hymn, Rigv. x. 129, where it
is said that - "that one (existent, neutr.) breathed breathless by
(or with) its svadha (? inherent power, or nature), beyond
that there was nothing whatever. .. that one live (germ) which was
enclosed in the void was generated by the power of heat (or
fervour); desire then first came upon it, which was the first seed of the mind. .. fertilizing
forces there were, svadha below, prayati (? will)
above." during ten days at the time of the autumnal equinox, in commemoration of
her victory over the buffalo-headed demon Mahishasura; when the
image of the ten-armed goddess, holding a weapon in each hand, is worshipped for nine
days, and cast into the water on the tenth day, called the
Dasahara, whence the festival itself is commonly called Dasara in
western India. Kali, on the other hand, the most terrible
of the goddess's forms, has a special service performed to her, at
the Kali-puja, during the darkest night of the succeeding
month; when she is represented as a naked black woman, four-armed,
wearing a garland of heads of giants slain by her, and a string of
skulls round her neck, dancing on the breast of her husband (Mahakala), with gaping
mouth and protruding tongue; and when she has to be propitiated by
the slaughter of goats, sheep
and buffaloes. On other occasions also Vamacharis commonly offer
animal sacrifices, usually one or more kids; the head of the
victim, which has to be severed by a single stroke, being always
placed in front of the image of the goddess as a blood-offering
(bali), with an earthen
lamp fed with ghee burning above
it, whilst the flesh is cooked and served to the guests attending
the ceremony, except that of buffaloes, which is given to the
low-caste musicians who perform during the service. Even some
adherents of this class have, however, discontinued animal
sacrifices, and use certain kinds of fruit, such as coco-nuts or
pumpkins, instead. The use of wine, which at one time was very
common on these occasions, seems also to have become much more
restricted; and only members of the extreme section would still
seem to adhere to the practice of the so-called five m's
prescribed by some of the Tantras, viz. mainsa (flesh),
matsya (fish), madya (wine), maithuna
(sexual union), and mudra (mystical finger signs) -
probably the most degrading cult ever practised under the pretext
of religious worship.

In connexion with the principal object of this cult, Tantric
theory has devised an elaborate system of female figures
representing either special forms and personifications or
attendants of the "Great Goddess." They are generally arranged in
groups, the most important of which are the Mahavidyas
(great sciences), the 8 (or 9) Mataras (mothers) or
Mahamataras (great mothers), consisting of the wives of
the principal gods; the 8 Nayikas or mistresses; and
different classes of sorceresses and ogresses, called Yoginis,
Dakinis and Sakinis. A special feature of the Sakti
cult is the use of obscure Vedic mantras, often changed so
as to be quite meaningless and on that very account deemed the more
efficacious for the acquisition of superhuman powers; as well as of
mystic letters and syllables called bija (germ), of magic circles (chakra) and
diagrams (yantra), and of amulets of various materials
inscribed with formulae of fancied mysterious import.

This survey of the Indian sects will have shown how little the
character of their divine objects of worship is calculated to exert
that elevating and spiritualizing influence, so characteristic of
true religious devotion. In all but a few of the minor groups
religious fervour is only too apt to degenerate into that very
state of sexual excitation which devotional exercises should surely
tend to repress. If the worship of Siva, despite the purport of his
chief symbol, seems on the whole less liable to produce these
undesirable effects than that of the rival deity, it is doubt-
less due partly to the real nature of that emblem
being little realized by the common people, and partly to the
somewhat repellent character of the "great god," more favourable to
evoking feelings of awe and terror than a spirit of fervid
devotion. All the more are, however, the gross stimulants,
connected with the adoration of his consort, calculated to work up
the carnal instincts of the devotees to an extreme degree of
sensual frenzy. In the Vaishnava camp, on the other hand, the cult
of Krishna, and more especially that of the youthful Krishna, can
scarcely fail to exert an influence which, if of a subtler and more
insinuating, is not on that account of a less demoralizing kind.
Indeed, it would be hard to find anything less consonant with
godliness and divine perfection than the pranks of this juvenile
god; and if poets and thinkers try to explain them away by dint of
allegorical interpretation, the plain man will not for all their
refinements take these amusing adventures any the less au pied
de la lettre. No fault, in
this respect, can assuredly be found with the legendary Rama, a
very paragon of knightly
honour and virtue, even as his consort Sita is the very model of a
noble and faithful wife; and yet this cult has perhaps retained
even more of the character of mere hero-worship than that of
Krishna. Since by the universally accepted doctrine of
karman (deed) or karmavipaka (" the maturing of
deeds") man himself - either in his present, or some future,
existence - enjoys the fruit of, or has to atone for, his former
good and bad actions, there could hardly be room in Hindu pantheism for a belief in
the remission of sin by divine grace
or vicarious substitution. And accordingly the "descents" or
incarnations of the deity have for their object, not so much the
spiritual regeneration of man as the deliverance of the world from
some material calamity threatening to overwhelm it. The generally
recognized principal Avatars do not, however, by any means
constitute the only occasions of a direct intercession of the deity
in worldly affairs, but - in the same way as to this day the
eclipses of the sun and moon are ascribed by the ordinary Hindu to
these luminaries being temporarily swallowed by the dragonRahu (or
Graha, " the seizer") - so any uncommon occurrence would
be apt to be set down as a special manifestation of divine power;
and any man credited with exceptional merit or achievement, or even
remarkable for some strange incident connected with his life or
death, might ultimately come to be looked upon as a veritable
incarnation of the deity, capable of influencing the destinies of
man, and might become an object of local adoration or superstitious
awe and propitiatory rites to multitudes of people. That the
transmigration theory, which makes the spirit of the departed hover
about for a time in quest of a new corporeal abode, would naturally
lend itself to superstitious notions of this kind can scarcely be
doubted. Of peculiar importance in this respect is the worship of
the Pitris (" fathers") or deceased ancestors, as entering
largely into the everyday life and family relations of the Hindus.
At stated intervals to offer reverential homage and oblations of
food to the forefathers up to the third degree is one of the most
sacred duties the devout Hindu has to discharge. The periodical
performance of the commemorative rite of obsequies called Sraddha - i.e. an
oblation "made in faith"
(sraddha, Lat. credo) - is the duty and privilege
of the eldest son of the deceased, or, failing him, of the nearest
relative who thereby establishes his right as next of kin in
respect of inheritance; and those other relatives who
have the right to take part in the ceremony are called sapinda,
i.e. sharing in the pindas (or balls of cooked rice,
constituting along with libations of water the usual offering to
the Manes) - such relationship being held a bar to intermarriage. The first Sraddha
takes place as soon as possible after the antyeshti ("
final offering") or funeral ceremony proper, usually spread over
ten days; being afterwards repeated once a month for a year, and
subsequently at every anniversary and otherwise voluntarily on
special occasions. Moreover, a simple libation of water should be offered to the
Fathers twice daily at the morning and evening devotion called
sandhya ("twilight"). It is doubtless a sense of filial
obligation coupled
with sentiments of piety and reverence that gave rise to this
practice of offering gifts of food and drink to the deceased
ancestors. Hence also frequent allusion is made by poets to the
anxious care caused to the Fathers by the possibility of the living
head of the family being afflicted with failure of offspring; this
dire prospect compelling them to use but sparingly their little store of provisions, in case the
supply should shortly cease altogether. At the same time one also
meets with frank avowals of a superstitious fear lest any
irregularity in the performance of the obsequial rites should cause
the Fathers to haunt their old home and trouble the peace of their
undutiful descendant, or even prematurely draw him after them to
the Pitri-loka or world of the Fathers, supposed to be located in
the southern region. Terminating as it usually does with the
feeding and feeing of a greater or less number of Brahmans and the
feasting of members of the performers' own caste, the Sraddha,
especially its first performance, is often a matter of very
considerable expense; and more than ordinary benefit to the
deceased is supposed to accrue from it when it takes place at a
spot of recognized sanctity, such as one of the great places of
pilgrimage like Prayaga (Allahabad, where the three sacred rivers,
Ganga, Yamuna and Sarasvati, meet), Mathura, and especially Gaya and Kasi (Benares). But indeed
the tirthayatra, or pilgrimage to holy bathing-places, is
in itself considered an act of piety conferring religious merit in
proportion to the time and trouble expended upon it. The number of
such places is legion and is
constantly increasing. The banks
of the great rivers such as the Ganga (Ganges), the Yamuna (Jumna),
the Narbada, the Krishna (Kistna), are studded with them, and the
water of these rivers is supposed to be imbued with the essence of
sanctity capable of cleansing the pious bather of all sin and moral
taint. To follow the entire course of one of the sacred rivers from
the mouth to the source on one side and back again on the other in
the sun-wise (pradakshina) direction - that is, always keeping the
stream on one's right-hand side - is held to be a highly
meritorious undertaking which it requires years to carry through.
No wonder that water from these rivers, especially the Ganges, is
sent and taken in bottles to all parts of India to be used on
occasion as healing medicine or for sacramental purposes. In Vedic
times, at the Rajasuya, or inauguration of a king, some
water from the holy river Sarasvati was mixed with the sprinkling
water used for consecrating the king. Hence also sick persons are
frequently conveyed long distances to a sacred river to heal them
of their maladies; and for a dying man to breathe his last at the
side of the Ganges is devoutly believed to be the surest way of
securing for him salvation and eternal bliss.

Such probably was the belief of the ordinary Hindu two thousand
years ago, and such it remains to this day. In the light of facts
such as these, who could venture to say what the future of Hinduism
is likely to be ? Is the regeneration of India to be brought
about by the modern theistic movements, such as the Brahma-samaj and Arya-samaj, as so close
and sympathetic an observer of Hindu life and thought as Sir A.
Lyall seems to think ? "The Hindu mind," he remarks, "is
essentially speculative and transcendental; it will never consent
to be shut up in the prison of
sensual experience, for it has grasped and holds firmly the central
idea that all things are manifestations of some power outside
phenomena. And the tendency of contemporary religious discussion in
India, so far as it can be followed from a distance, is towards an
ethical reform on the old foundations, towards searching for some
method of reconciling their Vedic theology with the practices of religion taken
as a rule of conduct and a system of moral government. One can
already discern a movement in various quarters towards a
recognition of impersonal theism, and towards fixing the teaching of the
philosophical schools upon some definitely authorized system of
faith and morals, which may satisfy a rising ethical standard, and
may thus permanently embody that tendency to substitute spiritual
devotion for external forms and caste rules which is the
characteristic of the sects that have from time to time dissented
from orthodox Brahminism." Authorities. - Census of India
(1901), vol. i. part i.; India, by H. H. Risley and E. A.
Gait; vol. i. Ethnographical Appendices, by H. H. Risley;
The Indian Empire, vol. i. (new ed., Oxford, 1907); J. Muir, Original Sanskrit
Texts (2nd ed., 5 vols., London, 1873) Monier Williams,
Religious Thought and Life in India (London, 1883);
Modern India and the Indians (London, 1878, 3rd ed. 18
79); Hinduism (London, 1877); Sir Alfred C. Lyall,
Asiatic Studies '(2 series, London, 1899); "Hinduism" in
Religious Systems of the World (London, 1904);
"Brahminism" in Great Religions of the World (New York and London, 1902);
W. J. Wilkins, Modern Hinduism (London, 1887); J. C. Oman,
Indian Life, Religious and Social (London, 1879); The
Mystics, Ascetics and Saints of India (London, 1903); The
Brahmans, Theists and Muslims of India (London, 1907); S. C.
Bose, The Hindus as they are (2nd ed., Calcutta, 1883); J. Robson, Hinduism and
Christianity (Edinburgh and London, 3rd ed., 1905); J. Murray
Mitchell, Hinduism
Past and Present (2nd ed., London, 1897); Jogendra Nath
Bhattacharya, Hindu Castes and Sects (Calcutta, 1896); A.
Barth, The Religions of
India (London, 1882); E. W. Hopkins, The Religions of
India (London, 1896). (J. E.)

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